


Waylon Jones, Godfather

by bluebeholder



Series: Rehabilitation Via Dryer Settings [2]
Category: Suicide Squad (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Archaeology, Background Deadshot/Harley, Found Family, Friendship, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, My Precious Trash Heap Children, Pregnancy, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-02
Updated: 2016-12-02
Packaged: 2018-09-03 20:13:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8728615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebeholder/pseuds/bluebeholder
Summary: Waylon's adjusting to life in this weird-ass version of suburbia the team calls home just fine, thanks. But three unusual events--which shouldn't have had any impact on each other at all--come together to create the single strangest thing that has ever happened in his life.





	

There are three things, all seemingly totally unrelated, that came together into what was the single strangest thing to happen in Waylon Jones’ terribly strange life. First, June Moon got pregnant; second, Waylon developed an interest in the Ancient Egyptian deity Sobek; and, third, Waylon was nearly killed by flying shrapnel on a nasty mission. These things shouldn't have been related, but somehow they all got tangled up in each other, and later on Waylon realized that no matter how weird it all was he wouldn't have it any other way. 

Now that there had been an "appropriate" period of adjustment (Waller's words, not the team's), they were back to being used as a troubleshooting team. Waylon liked it. He liked breaking things and fighting people, and it was fine. He still didn't quite fit in with the rest of the team, but that was just fine. He'd never belonged anywhere, so why start now?

Things were pretty normal, so it was kind of a shock when they found out about June Moon's pregnancy. The news arrived almost by accident. Rick and June didn’t exactly shout the news from the rooftops, but Waylon (with the hours of time he spent sunning himself on the porch or swimming laps in the pool) noticed the unusual uptick in the number of strange cars arriving at Rick and June’s doorstep. It didn’t take long for him to put things mostly together. Rick got really worried and distracted every time they had a mission, and finally, between his weird behavior and all the visitors Waylon noticed and Floyd’s observations the squad as a whole came to the conclusion that something was clearly up with June.

“I bet it’s a baby!” Harley said. 

“Probably the Enchantress,” Floyd said grimly. 

“Why don’t we just ask?” Chato suggested, with his usual reasonableness. 

So they went over, all five of them, to knock on the door and ask. 

“What’s up, guys?” Rick asked when he opened the door. 

Harley bounced forward and Waylon slapped his forehead with his palm. This had been a terrible idea, he’d just known it. “Are you and June gonna have a baby?” Harley asked. 

Rick stared at her, then at the rest of the squad. “…I’m not gonna ask how you all figured that out,” he said slowly. “You should come in.”

June looked a little terrified, when the whole squad was crowded into her living room, but she smiled graciously and clung to Rick’s arm as everyone congratulated her. Waylon felt kind of bad, really. June wasn’t “one of them”. She was just under watch because of the whole Enchantress thing. But she wasn’t a criminal or a cannibal or whatever. He’d be scared, too, if he were in her place.

When it was Waylon’s turn, he offered a hand. “You’ll be a good mom,” he said. 

June’s hand looked really tiny and fragile in his as she shook his hand. “Thanks,” she said, voice only trembling a little. Waylon thought about smiling reassuringly, remembered his sharp teeth, and kept his lips closed when he did smile. 

So that was that: June Moon was pregnant. It wasn’t like Rick talked about it much, but from what he let slip it was pretty easy to surmise that it wasn’t an easy pregnancy. The squad worried about them at a bit of a distance, not really able to do much to help except make missions as easy on Rick as possible so he could go home to June unharmed. Floyd got real into that part—it came of being a dad, Waylon thought. For being a criminal and a murderer, Floyd sure was a family man. He and Rick had been getting steadily closer since the whole thing came out. Waylon maybe didn’t get it, but who was he to judge? Chato went and found God, Harley and Floyd were shacking up, and old Boomerang was pretty happy too. Waylon didn’t know about being super happy, but he didn’t mind his life. It was…what did Floyd call it when he was bitching about how hard ? “Normal.” Yeah, that was it. Normal.

What wasn’t normal was the part where he picked up an interest in Ancient Egyptian mythology. 

“If Diablo over there gets to be a god, why don’t the rest of us?” Harley asked one night over dinner. “I should be, like, Persephone or something.”

“We’re just normies,” Boomerang said. He glanced at Waylon. “’cept maybe you. Isn’t there some Egyptian god who looks like a crocodile?”

Floyd pulled his phone out of his pocket. It had limited data at best, and was blocked from making phone calls to anyone but Rick, but who cared about that? It was a phone. “Yeah,” he said after a minute of typing. “Name of Sobek. River god, crocodile god, fertility god…and that’s all Wikipedia has to say.”

“Fertility god?” Waylon said, raising his eyebrows and chuckling. “I’ll take that.”

He did find himself pretty curious, though, after that conversation. Chato got to be some epic Aztec fire deity, the Enchantress was some kind of physical goddess, Superman was…well, he was Superman. Why couldn’t Waylon be a god, too?

It wasn’t long before Waylon started doing some research of his own. Sobek’s epithets were things like “the Rager” and “pointed of teeth”. He was a powerful, unpredictable god of great power, and Waylon kind of liked the idea. 

One thing led to another and before Waylon knew it he was really just reading non-stop about Ancient Egypt. He devoured Wikipedia articles and crappy homemade sites alike, but it started getting repetitive. The same information, over and over and over. So Waylon thought about it, and in short order realized that he actually knew someone who could help. 

When June opened the door, she looked shocked to find Waylon standing there. 

“Hey,” he rumbled. “I know this is weird, but you know anything about Ancient Egypt?”

June looked totally confused for a second or two, then she took a step back. “Come on in, Waylon,” she said with a hesitant smile.

Waylon felt super uncomfortable in June Moon’s nice living room, but he guessed she felt just as awkward having an eight- foot- tall crocodile man standing there. It was an awkward situation for everybody, and saying something about it would just make things that much worse. So Waylon didn’t say anything about the awkwardness. Instead, he gave June his best smile. “So I guess you know something?”

“Sit down,” June said, pointing at the couch and taking her own seat in a chair. Waylon sat down and was pleasantly surprised to find that this couch didn’t threaten to collapse under his weight. Across from him, June leaned back in the chair and put her feet up on an ottoman. Clearly being on her feet was a struggle and a half. Waylon wasn’t sure he’d ever seen someone who looked quite so pregnant. She’d been a slim woman to begin with, but now she looked downright skeletal. He didn’t even know her that well and he was kinda worried. June cleared her throat. “So, Ancient Egypt was never my field of study. I focused on Central and South American cultures. But if you tell me what your research question is, I might be able to answer some of it or at least help you find books.”

She sounded, Waylon thought, a hell of a lot more comfortable when she was talking about archaeology than she ever sounded when she was talking about literally anything else. So he went ahead and explained his “research question” which was “please tell me more about Sobek because Google is failing me”, and June laughed and agreed that it was stupid that only she and Chato got to be ancient deities, and pointed him at the bookshelf where she kept a bunch of her old archaeology books. She had some things that helped, but not enough for either of their tastes, and when Waylon left June promised to get in contact with other friends of hers who might be able to help her find some better resources.

He came back the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that, and soon they had a bit of a thing going. She loaned him books and he let her bounce ideas for some of her own research off him. And it wasn’t long before June asked him to stay for dinner, because the conversation about Ancient Egyptian funeral rites was just too interesting to let go. Waylon liked how uncomfortable Rick was, and he liked how happy June was, and it basically just worked out all around. 

What didn’t work out was the day that the mission went terribly, horribly wrong, and Waylon almost died for the first time in his recent memory. 

It was a bad fucking mission from the start. They were supposed to be kicking the shit out of some small-time arms dealers, but what was just a little brawl turned into a big brawl and then somebody broke out the explosives. Waylon found that out, to his misfortune, when a pretty fucking sharp piece of metal hit him full across the chest, sinking itself halfway through his ribs. 

He woke up in intensive care, chest cracked like he’d been having open heart surgery, with people wondering if he was going to live. Groggy from the shock, Waylon expressed the opinion that he planned to keep on annoying the hell out of everyone around him even if he had been hit by a stupid piece of stupid shrapnel. He was kind of stunned when Harley, who looked like she’d been crying her eyes out on Floyd’s shoulder, threw her arms around him as best she could and planted a kiss right on his forehead. Her reaction was a little bit extreme; everyone else just seemed relieved. Waylon, though, was pissed: even with his accelerated healing, he wasn’t going to fix this up for a while. He wasn’t bedridden for long, luckily, but he wasn’t going to get cleared for active duty for a while yet. 

So when the team got called out on their next mission, Waylon didn’t get to go along. 

He spent half an hour sulking outside on the back porch, but eventually the warm sun got him feeling at least a little more centered about things. Sure, he couldn’t go, but on the other hand he didn’t have to go along. No risk, no dealing with Boomerang being a fucking weirdo, no Floyd being anxiously dad-like with Rick, no Harley cackling, no Chato being doom-and-gloom at everybody. It was all fine. 

He fixed himself a peaceful lunch and went out front afterwards to lay in the sprinklers. It wasn’t hard to notice that security right now was definitely subpar. Clearly, a lot of the guards were off on the mission. He leaned back in the spray of the sprinkler, thoroughly enjoying the cool water on his sun-warmed scales. This right here was crocodile heaven.

Just about the time that he was thinking about going back inside, Waylon saw June come out the front door of her house. He waved to her. She waved back, and that was when things went wrong. She started going down the porch steps and then he heard her cry out and the sound of a body falling. 

Waylon was not the fastest person on the team and he had the turn radius of a semi-truck, but he wasn’t slow by any normal person’s standards. He jumped the fence between houses—well, he crashed through it and left it a mangled wreck behind him, same difference—and ran to June’s side. She was at the bottom of the steps, arms wrapped around herself, making a horrible keening sound. 

“June. June!” Waylon said, gripping her shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

“It hurts,” she said, staring up at him with wild eyes. “Contractions—but it’s too soon—not for another week and a half—”

“Fuck!” Waylon looked around. Of course Rick was off on a goddamn mission. And so was everyone else useful. And none of the remaining guards were around either. He looked back at June. “You know how to get out of here?”

With effort, she nodded. 

“Cool,” Waylon said, and scooped her up in his arms. “Point at your car.”

He got her into the backseat with minimal difficulty and managed to track down some water for her to drink and a pillow to tuck under her head. Then he got in the driver’s seat—and it had been a long time since he had driven any vehicle at all, let alone a tiny car with a pregnant woman in the back—and puttered off according to the directions June was giving him weakly from the backseat. 

Finally, Waylon came to a gate. This was clearly the border of their weird-ass version of suburbia, and somehow he wasn’t surprised that the “neighborhood” ended right at the gate and fence, with nothing but empty cornfields around. There were a couple of guards, and Waylon got out of the car to talk to them. 

Clearly, they weren’t expecting Killer Croc to climb out of Rick and June’s car. One of the guards swore and dropped his gun, the other’s eyes just about fell out of his head. 

“S-s-stop!” the second guard commanded. 

Waylon held up his hands. “Look, I got June Moon in the car, and she needs a hospital right fucking now,” he growled. 

The guards exchanged glances. This was fucking rich: were these two the entire skeleton crew while the rest of the squad was gone? Waylon was gonna have a field day with Rick when he got back, assuming that June came out of this okay. 

“You c-c-can’t leave!” the second guard said. The first guy was still picking up his gun. “No one is s-s-supposed to leave the—”

“She’s in trouble!” Waylon snapped. “You morons really wanna explain this to Rick?”

Now that both guards had their guns again, they seemed much more confident. “Get back in the car,” the first guy said. “We’ll escort you back to the house—”

That was when Waylon stopped listening. He didn’t kill the guys, because they were just doing their jobs, yadda yadda, but he was none too gentle about knocking them out and tying them up in the gatehouse. He found a decent GPS in a drawer, found the nearest hospital on it, and then left a note for Rick on the gate, telling him where they’d gone and that he needed to fucking hurry up. 

“All good, Waylon?” June asked weakly from the backseat when Waylon got in the car.

He set the GPS on the dash. “Go straight on,” it told him politely. 

“Yeah,” he said. “Hang on, June, ’cause I’m about to ignore a lot of speed limits.”

The drive to the hospital should have taken an hour. With Waylon at the wheel, ignoring speed limits and traffic alike, it took only a little more than thirty minutes. He abandoned the car at the ER entrance, picked June up, and carried her inside. 

Apparently, having Killer Croc and a pregnant woman in crisis in the ER was cause for serious concern. Waylon didn’t give a fuck. June was getting paler and shakier by the minute, and if he had to menace a couple of people to make sure she got seen immediately, he didn’t care. So he menaced anyone who tried to say no to them, and June got seen immediately. 

“We’re going to have to ask you to leave—” one brave doctor tried, when they got June into a private room.

Waylon grinned suggestively. On anyone else, it would friendly; on him, it just looked downright terrifying. “I’m the Rager, pointed of teeth, buddy,” he said calmly. “You wanna try that again?”

The doctor quailed under the look. “You should definitely stay,” she said. 

Waylon gave her a thumbs up. “Right on,” he said. 

So he stayed right next to June Moon for the entire thing. It wasn’t like Waylon understood what the fuck was happening, but she was scared and crying. If he could make things a little better by standing next to her and holding her hand? Sure, he could do that. He wasn’t going to admit it out loud any time soon, but he was worried about June.

And when Rick finally got there, bursting into the room still wearing combat fatigues with a nasty scratch on his face, Waylon backed off. He figured Rick could handle it from here, if only by having a stick up his ass at the doctors until they did what they should. Waylon wandered out to the waiting room, asking directions politely from nurses until he found the one where the rest of the squad was chilling.

“Waylon!” Harley said, leaping up when he entered the room. “We got your note!”

“Good,” Waylon said, leaning against the wall. 

Chato smirked. “Those guards are pissed,” he said. 

“And now we know the way out, so thanks for that,” Boomerang said, distracted by the magazine he was reading. 

“How’s June?” Floyd asked.

Waylon shrugged. “I left her with Rick,” he said. “I guess she’ll be okay.”

And she was. It wasn’t long after that before a nurse came out and asked for a “Waylon Jones” to please follow him. The nurse clearly had nerves of steel, because his expression didn’t change when Waylon raised his hand and said that was him. 

When he came into the delivery room, June was sitting up in bed and Rick was standing next to her, holding her hand. And in June’s free arm was a small, blanket-wrapped bundle. June smiled at him when he came in. “Waylon!”

Rick let go of June’s hand to offer it to Waylon. “Thank you,” he said, and damn, this was the second most emotional Waylon had ever seen Rick get, next to the day they saved June from the Enchantress. Waylon shook Rick’s hand, on the principle of the thing. “They wouldn’t have survived if you hadn’t broken out to get her here.”

“How you doin'?” Waylon asked, looking down at June. 

“I feel great,” she said. She looked down tenderly at the tiny, wrinkly baby in the blanket. She looked back up at him. “We do have some news for you.”

Waylon squinted at June and Rick. “What?” he asked, still feeling a little suspicious. 

“We decided that, if you want it, we’d like to name you as the baby’s godfather,” Rick said. “And possibly name the baby after you.”

“We already did the second part,” June said. “He’s James Waylon Flag now.”

Well. That was unexpected. Waylon hadn’t expected to get warm fuzzy feelings today, but there they were anyway. “I’m calling him Jimmy,” he said.   
June laughed. “That’s fine,” she said. 

“About being his godfather—” Rick started.

Waylon rolled his eyes. It was kind of lucky he was so scaly, because they couldn’t tell that he was feeling a little embarrassed and overwhelmed by all this attention. “Don’t get your panties in a twist, buddy,” he said. “Of course I don’t mind.” 

“Do you want to hold him?” June asked.

Waylon thought about all his teeth and about his claws and his immense strength. “Uh, maybe not the best idea,” he said. “Ask Harley or Floyd instead, they're gonna want to hold the kid.”

June held out the baby to him. “Crocodile mothers,” she said softly, “are some of the gentlest, most caring parents around. They carry their babies in their mouths and respond to their babies’ distress calls. And after this morning? Waylon, I’d trust you to take care of Jimmy no matter what.”

“Okay then,” Waylon said, unsure how the hell else he was supposed to respond, and he took the baby. 

In his huge hands and arms, Jimmy looked very small. He was quiet and still, though Waylon suspected that wouldn’t last very long. 

“Of course he’s a natural and I almost dropped him,” Rick muttered. 

“Hush,” June said. “You’ll get better at it, love.”

Waylon inspected the baby. “Hey,” he said to little Jimmy. “Guess I’m supposed to help take care of you now. Which is weird. So how about when you’re old enough I teach you how to swim?”

“He’ll love it,” June said. 

Rick sighed. “This is my life now,” he muttered. 

Waylon handed Jimmy back to Rick. “Don’t worry, Dad,” he said with a shit-eating grin. “You still get to change all the diapers.”

Rick looked at the ceiling in exasperation as June laughed. “What did I do to deserve all of this?” he asked, but he was smiling. 

Waylon kept smiling as he went back out to the waiting room. It was weird, but he liked the idea of being a godfather. He’d protect Jimmy from anything that came their way, and that was a promise.


End file.
